Consumer groups have pleaded with energy providers to commit to a bill freeze to save hard-pressed households from even more financial pain this winter.

Comparison website USwitch.com warned that people are already starting to worry about next winter and the cost of energy bills.

It revealed that as many as 69 per cent of households went without heating at some point last winter to keep their energy costs down.

Despite complaints about eco levies, rising wholesale prices British Gas has consistently turned over operating profits on its residential energy supply business, according to Consumer Futures

Meanwhile 35 per cent of people said that cutting back on energy usage is affecting their quality of life or health.

Consumer group Consumer Futures urged British Gas owner Centrica to take the lead, after its financial results released today revealed profits from its residential energy arm rose by 3.2 per cent to £356million as it cashed in on the freeze in the first half of the year.

British Gas made £23 every second from its customers after raising its prices just before last year's record-breaking cold winter.

Consumer Futures added that wholesale gas prices have not risen significantly and their gas production and much of their generation business has done well.

‘Those factors should give British Gas confidence to hold its prices,’ said chief executive at Consumer Futures Mike O’Connor.

Time for some relief? People are already starting to worry about next winter and the cost of bills, USwitch.com warned

The plea came as Centrica refused to rule out further price hikes, blaming the cost of new rules designed to help tackle fuel poverty.

Centrica said the new regulations, which demand that energy companies help tackle fuel poverty by making homes more energy-efficient, are proving so expensive they risk backfiring and driving prices up.

Finance director Nick Luff said: 'We will keep prices as low as we can for as long as we can. If prices do have to go up, we will delay it for as long as possible.'

He defended the £11 million increase in profits for British Gas residential energy supply, saying it represented just 70p per customer. The company serves more than 11 million households, with nearly 16 million customer accounts.

Under the Energy Company Obligation
(ECO), introduced in January, the company is spending £1.4billion
upgrading homes. It is calling for an early review of the scheme's cost
and effectiveness.

Npower
and Scottish Power have also warned the scheme is proving more
expensive than expected and they may rise bills as a result.

The
programme requires all UK energy companies to achieve targets on fuel
poverty and lower carbon emissions by the end of March 2015.

Centrica
says if it does not meet the targets, it faces financial penalties of
up to 10 per cent of its global revenues - a total which last year stood at
£23.9 billion.

The company said it spent £300 million
on ECO in the first half of this year, contributing to a 37 per cent rise in
environmental costs for British Gas.

But DECC claimed costs are in line with expectations.

The average retail price of electricity at the 'big six' energy suppliers continues to rise faster than wholesale electricity (Source: Consumer Futures)

'We believe ECO currently costs well below what British Gas is claiming,’ a DECC spokesperson said.

‘The signs from the market suggest prices are broadly in line with Government estimates.’

Energy giants’ argument that they will have to raise prices again to pay for the energy efficiency measures can seem hard to stomach in the light of multi-million pound revenues.

Energy giant EDF posted a mammoth £903million in UK profits in the first half of the year yesterday after the coldest spring for half a century left many homes with significantly higher energy bills.

A report from the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee earlier this week argued that greater transparency about energy giants’ profits are needed to reassure consumers that they are not being ripped off.

The six largest energy companies are huge entities with several arms, which makes their financial reporting all but impossible to untangle, the report claimed.

Parent company Centrica also enjoyed bumper profits of £1.58billion for the past six months - up nine per cent - causing its shares to rise sharply this morning

One energy company can be generating, trading and supplying energy – and sometimes even selling energy and services to other parts of the same company.

When it comes to reporting their overall profits they include all these different arms, so it is difficult to work out exactly how much money companies are making out of British households.

As well as greater transparency on profits, the MPs said more must be done to simplify energy bills to make it easier to compare one tariff with another, the committee claimed.

Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite union, said: "These profits will anger a growing number of families who are struggling to pay the bills, made worse when the fuel companies hiked their charges last year.

'There should be a commitment from British Gas and the other fuel providers, all of whom have done very well out of the British people, to cut prices for customers this coming winter.'